United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is reportedly furious with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) over the fact that he was informed with very little notice that Israeli forces were on the verge of killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.
Throughout the war, Austin trusted that Gallant keep him informed of all significant Israeli moves. In fact, Gallant had developed such a close relationship with the Pentagon that many had begun to view him as Washington’s man in Israel’s government.
The fact that the Americans are generally distrustful of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) made Gallant their primary Israeli contact following the January withdrawal of National Unity leaders Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot from the war cabinet. In a major violation of accepted diplomatic protocol, Gallant had his own independent channels of communication with Washington that circumvented the prime minister.
But with rumors that Netanyahu was strongly considering the option of firing Gallant from his position, the defense minister found himself in a situation where in order to keep his job he was forced to execute a devastating assault on Hezbollah that he knew Washington would have objected to – especially given the fact that since October 7, the Americans had been pushing Israel to avoid the war spiraling out into a larger regional conflict.
In order to keep Gallant in the defense ministery, Austin and his colleagues likely cut him some slack on the Lebanese front. They understood that in order to keep his job, he’d have to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah. But they probably didn’t expect Israel to go as far as to reset the chess board by killing Nasrallah.
US efforts to prevent a larger regional war should be understood not merely as a desire to limit the scope of the conflict but also as trying to avoid the reshaping of the region through successful Israeli actions. Removing the threat of Hezbollah from Israel’s northern border has severely neutralized Tehran’s leverage over Jerusalem. As an Iranian proxy on Israel’s border, Hezbollah functioned as a loaded gun that prevented the Jewish state from taking bolder action against Iran and its nuclear program.
While Washington may have its own concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Americans had relied on a balance of power in the Semitic region to ensure that no one nation could become too dominant and all remain subordinate to US influence. This imperialist doctrine aimed to relegate Israel to a permanent defensive posture and was a significant factor in the failed conception that allowed for Hamas’s Simḥat Torah attacks on October 7.
In a moment when US and Israeli interests were clearly at odds, Gallant chose to go along with Netanyahu’s dramatic war on Hezbollah, crushing the militant group and eliminating its leadership. But to do so, the defense minister had to keep his American friends in the dark and demonstrate full loyalty to Israel. This has clearly angered Washington, which had been depending on Gallant to maintain control over Israel’s wartime policy.
It’s unclear whether the Americans have the option of replacing Gallant at this stage of the game. Based on the high stakes involved, the administration’s strategy might simply be to forgive Gallant his “betrayal” and allow him an opportunity to start fresh and re-earn their trust.
